31 December 2007
Tidy-up
Posted by Stuart under: Cacti; Propagation .
I decided to move two of my selenicereus, from one end of the greenhouse to the other, on the grounds that they were showing signs of wanting to interfere with the door.
Of course, being the tidy growers that they are, they had tied themselves in knots round things and the only way to get them out was with a knife…
So I now have more cuttings than I could ever possibly need. Not too many of Selenicereus grandiflorus (which I’ve written on in black pen so that I plant them the right way up once they’ve dried – learnt from the experience of losing track of them and trying to root them upside down a number of times)
Selenicereus pteranthus, as my plant is labelled – although I’m by no means convinced, having compared it with others bearing the same moniker – fared less well against the knife, and needed approximately 7ft of stems removing to enable its relocation.
There’s one thing to be said for them, though: they make great starter plants to give away to the uninitiated, even if they do take over quite quickly. They’re difficult to kill, and their speed of growth makes it obvious that something’s going on.
I suspect my S. pteranthus may actually be a mislabelled S. spinulosus, but if anyone has any better ideas, I’m all ears.